„LICHTWERK“ | Lichtrouten

The Lichtrouten Lüdenscheid is an internationally renowned light art festival that has been taking place since 2002. It is one of the earliest festivals of its kind and ranks alongside the Fête des Lumières in Lyon and the Dutch GLOW Eindhoven as pioneers in the field of light art festivals. The Lichtrouten have profoundly shaped the perception of light as an artistic medium and are an important part of the global light art and media art scene.

We were invited to transform the city’s landmark, the Phänomenta Tower, one of the few vertical membrane structures in existence. It is part of the namesake science museum. In its center, there is a Foucault pendulum, which makes the Earth’s rotation perceptible through its radial motion.

This year’s Lichtrouten is themed „New Energies“ and explores the changes in technology, society, and the environment that arise from the transformation in energy generation and usage.

Our work is called „LICHTWERK“, and it transforms the tower into a type of power plant, drawing starlight from the sky and splitting it into its spectral colors. Absorption lines reveal themselves and spread across the branched structure.

We have translated the pendulum’s motion into sound design. Its beat drives the power plant and accelerates an increasingly rapid oscillating flow of colors.